


Seeding the Ground

by singingwithoutwords



Series: A Life in Garden Metaphors [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingwithoutwords/pseuds/singingwithoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things start small, a single seed that can grow into something that changes and shapes your entire world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeding the Ground

**Author's Note:**

> In MCU-canon Rhodey is only two years older than Tony; in this verse he's four years older, making him 19 during this story.

James Rhodes met Tony Stark for the first time on his fifteenth birthday, in an overcrowded house miles from campus. He hadn't even known it was a birthday party, much less whose it was or that the person in question wasn't even legal to drive. He'd come along with some friends because he'd been promised quality alcohol and hot women who considered sleeping with a black guy their contribution to the fight for equal rights, and he was horny enough to be okay with that.

He lost his buddies almost as soon as they got there, but picked up a stunning blonde with massive tits – appropriately named Barbie – instead. Barbie was from South Carolina. Her daddy would implode if he knew she was talking to him. She was saving herself for marriage, but she wasn't sure if blowjobs counted. She was pretty, and James didn't mind convincing her they didn't.

Not that it took much work, really.

He and Barbie parted ways after he introduced her to the concept of two-way oral, with a promise to hook up that probably neither of them would remember in the morning. James collected a plastic cup of something amber and definitely better than he or anyone he knew could afford and wandered through the press of bodies looking for something to do until he found his friends.

He found a girl who didn't even bother with names before pulling him into a corner and doing her drunken best to suck his face off. He left her passed out in a comfy armchair nearby and went on his merry way.

He finally met Tony Stark on the second floor in a massive bedroom, drinking straight from a half-empty whiskey bottle. He was sprawled naked across the bed, eyes red-rimmed and unfocused, and he didn't look a day over twelve.

“Hey!” he said loudly, with cheer that sounded forced to James. “Didja come t'wish me a happy birthday, too?”

“Happy birthday,” James said automatically, hurrying to the bed and grabbing for the bottle.

The kid rolled away, sloshing whiskey all over the fancy bedspread, and giggled. “Nope, mine- get your own.”

“You're not old enough to drink that.”

“Fuck you. I can drink whatever I want, s'my birthday.”

“Unless you're at least twice as old as you look, no you can't,” James disagreed, climbing on the bed and going for the bottle again. “And where are your clothes?”

He paused, frowning, then shrugged. “Hell if I know, I haven't seen 'em since what's-his-face ripped my damn shirt.”

James took advantage of his distraction to wrestle the bottle out of his hand and set it on the nightstand. “Come on, kid, let's find your clothes and get you home.”

“I am not a kid. M'a Stark, we're all men.”

“Well, Stark-”

“Tony. Call me Tony. Failure of a Stark, anyway.”

“Okay, Tony,” James said, sighing. Not exasperated or annoyed, but frustrated that the person or people who made a kid this young feel like a failure weren't around for him to punch. “I'm James. Let's get you home.”

“Am home,” Tony said, rolling over into James's lap.

“Where are your parents, then?”

“New York.” Tony shrugged, eyes sliding away from James to stare at the ceiling. He was too young and too drunk to be able to hide the brief flash of hurt there, and James was nowhere near drunk enough to ignore it.

James rolled Tony off his lap and went to the dresser; Tony lodged inarticulate complaints into the bedspread while James dug out a pair of sweatpants and a shirt. He turned back in time to watch Tony lurch forward slightly and vomit over the side of the bed. He really should have seen that coming. He dropped the clothing on top of the dresser and went back to the bed, carefully shifting Tony into a sitting position.

“You're still here,” Tony said, staring up at him owlishly. “Huh.”

“Where's the bathroom?” James asked, picking Tony up with as little jostling as possible.

Tony waved vaguely at one wall of the room, which had two identical doors in it. James picked one at random and got it open, stepping into a private bathroom with a deep marble tub sunk into the floor, a massive mirror above the marble countertop, black marble tiling everywhere, and a toilet behind a marble and glass partition. He set Tony gently on the floor in front of the toilet and went to the tub, rolling up his sleeves.

“What're you doing?” Tony asked, sounding disinterested and tired.

“You need to get cleaned up,” James explained. “I'm running you a bath.”

“You're gonna bathe me?” Tony asked with a snort. “I'm not a baby, I can do that.”

“Not when you're this drunk, you can't. Why are you, by the way? This drunk, I mean?”

“'Cause Jarvis isn't here to stop me.”

“Jarvis?” James repeated, fiddling with the water, trying to get a nice warm bath temperature.

“Our butler. He's not here, he's up in New York 'cause Dad's got stupid company for a stupid business thingy and no one in the house can do anything so Jarvis didn't come visit me today.”

James didn't pretend to know how families rich enough to need butlers worked, but he was pretty sure the kids were supposed to miss their parents more than the staff. He studied the water level, figured it was enough, and shut off the tap, turning back to Tony, who was still slumped against the wall staring at him.

“Why're you still here?”

“Why wouldn't I be?” James asked, helping Tony across the short distance to the tub and getting him in.

“I dunno. Everyone else left. Party's more in'eresting than me, I guess.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

Tony grabbed his arm wordlessly, all but dragging him into the tub, and stared up at him like a lost and terrified kitten.

“Then I'm staying. Let's wash you up- you reek.”

Tony laughed, letting him go, and James started hunting for a washcloth.

 

* * *

 

James had never woken up in a strange bed with an old white guy glaring at him before.

He'd managed to get Tony clean and dressed and find an empty bedroom without vomit on the floor about the time the party started winding down. Tony had refused to let him leave, clinging to him and making the most pitiful noises in history, and James had wound up falling asleep at some point.

Now he was waking up to bright sunlight and a guy who _had_ to be the butler staring down at the bed with quiet disapproval.

“Good morning, sir,” the old guy said evenly. And of course the butler was British. “Might I ask your name?”

“James Rhodes,” James said. “Hey, Tony, I think Jarvis is here.”

Tony groaned into James's chest and muttered something uncomplimentary about the sun's mother. “You're not allowed to be named James.”

“I'm pretty sure I am. Come on, wake up, I think the only reason I'm not dead is he doesn't want to get blood on the sheets.”

Tony groaned again and rolled over, off of James and almost off the bed. “S'not my birthday anymore.”

“I apologize, Master Anthony. Shall I dispose of the cake?”

“God, no,” Tony said, rolling back into James's chest. “Don't be mad at my new teddy bear, Jarvis. He gave me a bath.”

Jarvis fixed James with a look of disbelief bordering on contempt.

“Not that kind of bath,” James protested quickly, glad his skin was too dark to show much of a blush. “He was drinking and threw up, so I cleaned him up and put him to bed. That's all, honest.”

Jarvis regarded him coolly for what felt like years before he finally nodded. “Forgive my assumption, Master Rhodes- that was unkind of me.”

“It's okay. And really, just James is fine.”

“James is boring,” Tony spoke up. “I don't like boring names. My teddy bear can't have a boring name.”

“Too bad.”

“Nope. You're not James, you're... you're my Rhodey bear. Rhodey for short.”

“I am never letting you call me Rhodey.”

“Rhodey is a brilliant name.”

“It's stupid.”

“It'll catch on, just you watch.”

“No. No, it won't.”

“When you're finished here, perhaps you'd both like to come down for breakfast,” Jarvis suggested.

Tony whined, and because he was watching, James saw the way Jarvis had to fight down an indulgent smile. “Don't wanna get up, J. Breakfast in bed? Please?”

“I suppose it can't hurt, just this once,” Jarvis said with a put-upon sigh. “The cleaners will be here shortly, so I suppose it's for the best.”

“Dad can afford it. Payback for stealing you.”

“Is it too late to wish you a happy birthday, Master Anthony?”

“Never.”

“Then happy birthday, Anthony.”

James smiled. Jarvis smiled back briefly before buttling himself out of the room to make breakfast while Tony burrowed back under the blankets, complaining nonstop about how much daylight sucked.

If someone had told him yesterday he'd wind up in some rich white kid's bed getting nicknamed and making friends with the butler, he would have called them crazy. Then again, there were crazier ways to make new friends.

Even if he was never, ever going to answer to a nickname as stupid as Rhodey.

**Author's Note:**

> RWYS is giving me trouble again, so I wrote this instead. Please don't kill me.


End file.
